By Jeremy Harness

 

STANFORD – Stanford athletics had quite a bit to be thankful for on this holiday weekend. But now it’s time for the hard stuff.

 

A day after the football team edged out a win over a very good Notre Dame team in preparation for next Saturday’s Pac-12 championship game, the basketball team shook off a disheartening loss to blow out an overmatched South Dakota State squad, 92-60, in a regional round game of the seventh-annual Progressive Legends Classic at Maples Pavilion Sunday night.

 

The win ran Stanford’s record to 6-2 and was much needed after suffering a 88-67 loss to Pittsburgh in the Progressive Legends Classic’s championship game in Brooklyn, during which the Cardinal shot 50 percent from the field but nonetheless had its four-game winning streak snapped.

 

Simply put, Stanford had it pretty easy all night and were never really challenged. The Cardinal were frequently able to get whatever shot they wanted while as South Dakota State really struggled from the field against what figures to be one of the better defensive teams in the Pac-12.

 

The Jackrabbits, on the other hand, did not present a similar defense. The Cardinal went to the basket early and often with minimal resistance and racked up plenty of foul calls and continuation plays.

 

Stanford scored the first 13 points of the game and jumped out to a 58-24 halftime lead, and in the second half, the Cardinal led by as many as 39 and had all of its starters resting peacefully by the midway point of the second half.

 

The fact that the game was such a blowout from the outset allowed Stanford to get more guys into the action. In addition, Dwight Powell, one of the main cogs of the Stanford machine, wasn’t one of the top scorers on Sunday with only nine points on 4-of-8 shooting.

 

Chasson Randle, on the other hand, didn’t miss a beat, scoring 21 points while making seven of his 10 shots, including three of his five 3-point shots. Anthony Brown, who has had his role on offense expand a lot this year, was 7-of-11 from the floor and had 19 points to go along with eight rebounds.

 

For South Dakota State, the leading scorer was Jordan Dykstra, who had 20 points while making seven of his 14 field-goal attempts, including two of his three 3-point attempts, while Brayden Carlson scored 16.

 

It’s a good thing that the Cardinal didn’t have much stress on Sunday, because they figure to have plenty of that for the next two weeks. See, up next for the student-athletes (more emphasis on the student part here) are the dreaded final exams, for which they will be off the court for 12 days and are not scheduled to play again until Dec. 14 at home against UC Davis.